Pantheon
Maraentia has a complex pantheon composed by Domains, The Forgotten, Gods, Ascendants, Champions and Lairs that follow the following rules: * Every Domain (death, love, etc.) has both a god (god of death, god of love, etc.) and a lair (lair of death, lair of love, etc.). * Every god has a number of up to 5 champions. * Every lair has up to 1 guardian. * Every god, champion or guardian is also an ascendant, but most ascendants are unaligned and don't follow a domain. The forgotten Also called elders or primary gods. Powerful entities created by The Origin. Little is known about them but for the fact that there are 7 and have little to no interest in the happenings of Maraentia. Domains Domains are the semi-sentient invisible representation of natural forces, feelings or living races. Domains are the source of clerical magic and mortals can extract power from them to cast spells. To do this they require a symbol (physical object) consecrated to an ascendant (or God) aligned with any domain. The ascendant acts as a channel that transfers the power of a domain to a mortal. They cannot negate the use of the domain but they will know when they are used for this. Some scholars say that the more people uses an ascendant as channel the more powerful the ascendant becomes, theorizing that this is the reason for the power of gods and demigods. Domain list * Chaos * Darkness * Death * Knowledge * Light * Love * Nature * Order * War Gods Gods are the representations of natural forces, sentient feelings or living races. When a god dies an ascendant will take its place instead. If no ascendants with the same domain are available, a mortal could be chosen for this. Nobody knows who or what chooses the next god when this happens. Major Minor Gods can excommunicate priests from the same domain (even ascendants) to forbid them using magic from the same domain they rule. This action needs to be enacted in the presence of the god and the person to be excommunicated and the domain needs to agree with it. A domain disagreeing with an excommunication is a very rare case but it can happen in the following situations: * Whenever the God excommunicates a rival aligned with the same domain. * Arbitrary or misguided excommunication. Ascendants Ascendants are immortal beings belonging to mortal races. Ascendants can either "ascend" for unknown reasons or been ascended by Gods, Lairs or Domains. A few ascendants are born with the condition when they are the product of the union of a god and something else (another god, ascendant, champion or mortal). Although they might feel sympathy for a domain, ascendants are not forcefully associated with them. An ascendant drawing power from a particular domain might in fact try to usurp the god's position actively. Known ascendants Champions Champions are the appointed followers of gods. All gods can have up to five champions. Each one of them is supposed to fulfill a particular role. However, appointment of champions normally are not requested and rather imposed so mortals or ascendants appointed this way could try to ignore the god's will or even conspire against it. Once appointed, champions cannot resign and can only be removed from the position by the god who appointed them or by dying. When a mortal becomes a champion, it automatically becomes also an ascendant. Normally a god will not have its five champion's slots allocated. Lairs Lairs are physical representations of a domain and, when accessed, they become a safe house for the entities inside of it. Lairs are shaped in the form of buildings from the material plane remaining hidden in plain sight. They could be as massive as a castle or as small as a hut and they may change its appearance at will. The existence of a Lair is normally not known to people passing by and the only indication that a Lair is there is because it will resist any magical or physical intent of modifying or accessing its structure. Not even a spell of "wish" can alter it. The Lair is a sentient being and decides when someone can access it. They are by default sealed and can even deny the entrance to an ascendant of the same domain if they wish to. Once accessed, the external sizing and shape won't matter and the Lair disposition and size could be completely different to the outer shape. It can also vary on time, changing its distribution and size each time it is visited. Guardian The Lair can appoint a form of champion called guardian. The guardian can exit physically the Lair it guards but only to a minimal extent (some hundred paces). A Guardian can only be appointed inside of the Lair he will be guarding and the position is for life. Only when a guardian dies (usually in a violent way) the Lair may search for a replacement. A mortal appointed as a guardian automatically also becomes an ascendant.